Forum:Proposal: Resolve Issue of Inactive Admins/Bcrats
Project Proposal Fallen Earth Wiki users will resolve the issue of inactive administrators and bureaucrats. Intended Project Outcome Wiki users can easily identify and contact an active administrator when needed. Current Situation Fallen Earth Wiki currently has 13 registered users with administrator (sysop) rights. Of these, 5 have last-login dates over 60 days old. Some of our remaining administrators have not edited the wiki in several weeks. Current Challenges A new user unfamiliar with general wiki usage would have a difficult time locating an active administrator if one were needed. Messages submitted to inactive admins could easily be overlooked by active admins, resulting in loss of new wiki participants. Our wiki has no existing policy to guide bureaucrats in revoking admin rights for inactivity. The same is true for guiding admins in tagging other admin user pages as inactive. Unilateral action by a single bureaucrat/admin to resolve this situation could result in unnecessary disruption in the wiki community. Why is this important? Good communication within the wiki community must be demonstrated by its bureaucrats and administrators. Inactivity inhibits all forms of communication. Possible Solutions * Define "inactivity" for admins and bureaucrats. * Authorize bureaucrats to remove admin rights from all inactive users. * Authorize admins to add javascript to flag inactive admin user pages. * Authorize admins to add javascript to flag inactive bureaucrat user pages. * Request inactive bureaucrats to remove their rights when they anticipate their own inactivity. * Request Wikia staff to remove bureaucrat status from non-responsive inactive users. * Formulate such solutions into a policy to provide future guidance to the wiki. Action Plan Since our wiki has not established a definitive guideline regarding such a project, I am posting this discussion topic for user feedback. Possible solutions should be modified with additional reader ideas. Definitive action proposals will be posted for specific feedback as necessary. Please add your comments and concerns below. -Qailor (talk) 18:33, December 16, 2013 (UTC) ----- Discussion I wanted to add this point-of-information in the discussion area: bureaucrats are able to assign themselves administrator rights. If wiki policy directs another bureaucrat to remove such rights during a period of inactivity, the inactive bureaucrat can reactivate those rights upon return. Returning bureaucrats should assume good faith according to general wiki guidelines, and should not assign ill will to the bureaucrat who had removed those rights to assist the wiki community in identifying active from inactive administrators. -Qailor (talk) 18:39, December 16, 2013 (UTC) Next, since bureaucrats can remain such without also being administrators, I would suggest bureaucrat activity should be based upon latest login date. I would also suggest admin activity should be based upon latest edit date. The wiki becomes a candidate for wiki adoption, in part, once its bureaucrats have been inactive for over 60 days. I think 60 days without login is a suitable length to qualify a bureaucrat as inactive. However, admins should be more responsive; 30 days without activity should be long enough to qualify them as inactive. I also think that bureaucrats who have served the wiki over a year, and can still be contacted should retain bureaucrat status - even if flagged inactive. Kindragon recently saved us from contacting Wikia staff to request a wiki adoption. He, Gurmil, and Aethaeran would qualify under such status. -Qailor (talk) 18:54, December 16, 2013 (UTC) Note: I just posted individual notices to the walls of the other 12 administrators to ensure due diligence in contacting all users who would be directly affected by this proposal. -Qailor (talk) 19:16, December 16, 2013 (UTC) More than a week has passed without additional comment by others on this topic. Aethaeran has recently returned to the wiki, albeit in a less active mode of involvement. Although this topic will remain open for a bit longer, I will begin to formulate some guidelines in anticipation of no additional input. I think we can characterize our wiki's community culture to be minimally engaging its participants. We might use this to determine a suitable length of time for inactivity flagging. -Qailor (talk) 19:31, December 26, 2013 (UTC) As I see it, the primary purpose of a FE Wiki bureaucrat is to add additional users to our team of administrators, rollback users, and bureaucrats - as needed. All other non-sysop functions of bureaucrats (ie removing such rights) only come into play when the community has been disrupted. Since we just recently experienced the positive effect of retaining an inactive bureaucrat on our roster, I suggest we retain all bureaucrats that can be contacted via their message walls/talk pages. Any who cannot be contacted for a duration equivalent to their historic period of activity should be considered long-gone. These users' rights should be removed by Wikia staff at our request. Such requests should not be submitted more often than once every 12 months. -Qailor (talk) 14:32, January 7, 2014 (UTC) :Keeping our leadership team roster in mind, one of our new bureaucrats, Elford68, resigned his rights as bureaucrat and administrator yesterday without comment. -Qailor (talk) 14:16, January 8, 2014 (UTC)